Here are 6 useful tips and trends this 2012 to get your visitors to subscribe to your newsletters:

1. Better Call-to-Action Through Social Media Integration

The fastest way to spread news nowadays is through social media. Facebook has already added an e-mail feature to every user, which is HTML-friendly and multimedia-attachable.
You can also place a "share this e-mail" link to your mail. Instead of asking your readers to forward your message to friends, they can share it to sites like Twitter and Facebook.

2. Go Mobile

We're all aware that internet marketers nowadays have taken mobile marketing seriously. Know your audience. Know how they read their emails and where they read their emails. Design your opt-in forms in mobile-friendly ways. HTML5 gives end users an easy experience to filling-up forms through iPhone and Safari browsers. Construct your email layout in a mobile-friendly way. New mobile phones that are coming out show HTML contents, allow you to click and view videos and other embedded objects.

If you're running an offline business, you can make one of those coupons that your readers could receive through email after filling-up your opt-in form and present to your business in person for a discount or freebie. This is just one of the few ways to make mobile readership appealing and interactive.

3. Shorter and Straightforward E-mails

This is not a new thing. But even in 2011 we still get those long emails from the newsletters we were subscribed to. Even some Internet marketers are guilty of this.
In relaying your message, be straightforward. Think of creative ways to get your readers' attention without having to let them read long blocks of text. Bear in mind that there could be hundreds of SPAM messages on your readers Junk folder. If they see that it's something commercial, they don't read, they just scan. Make your message short and succinct and make it interesting by placing a catchy text on the subject line.

If your website has a blog, you can place a link at the bottom of your message that links to your article. Instead of sending them a long boring email, get them to read your article as it would be less boring because you can add pictures and videos to your post. This is also a great way to add traffic to your site.

4. Effective Targeting

For the past few years e-mail marketing has always been associated with SPAM and irrelevant mails. This year, people are getting wiser and to get higher level of engagement from your readers, always aim for relevant and well-targeted content.

5. Email Marketing with Style

We are all aware that E-mail hosts are making our mails boring for the better by turning images off by default. But this doesn't mean that we don't need to send our mails with style. Even without images and HTML, make your mails look attractive and presentable by using rich-text styles, borders and applying Web 2.0 look to your e-mails.

Also, give your message a new look regularly or update the style and make it seasonal. Make it look more personal rather than the old, professional, autopilot and monotonous look that blends with the other usual e-mails that they could get. Give them a reason to subscribe and look forward in to something fresh and new.

6. The Old WIIFM

Don't forget that your subscribers subscribed to get something, not to read your promotions. Remember the old What's In it For Me rule in advertising. Give them a freebie for every purchase. Time-limited offers could be exciting or even a 20% discount on their next purchase. They want to look forward for something more, something that they couldn't just get from their usual subscription. Give them rewards for their loyalty, even once in a while.

The new site is driven by a content management system that enables non-technical staff to manage and maintain the site. A password-protected members only area enables patients and doctors to view sensitive information, while new patients and visitors can download forms and learn more about what to expect on their first visit.

About Uro-Gynaecology & Women's Health Clinic

UGWHC is a specialist medical practice providing Urogynaecology, Gynaecology and Obstetric services. Our specialist, Dr Kurinji Kannan, is an Obstetrian and Gynaecologist and a qualified Urogynaecologist. Dr Kannan is among a very small group of women in Australia and New Zealand to achieve a sub-specialty certification in Urogynaecology.

Among the key elements included in the site are:

• Custom per-yard inventory tracking
• Custom cost per yard display
• One-click reorders
• Suggestive search

About Symphony Fabrics

Symphony Fabrics began as a domestic textile converter in 1939. Under the direction of Seymour Schneiderman, Symphony became the number one resource for top designers and major apparel manufacturers in the United States and abroad. Their commitment to innovation, quality and customer service made Symphony Fabrics a leading textile converter. Symphony grew its domestic business and also became a leader in the global fabric market. Symphony Fabrics continues to be committed to the core values by which Seymour lived and worked:  providing innovative designs, high quality fabrics, and making customer satisfaction a top priority.

“The goal of this redesign was to give the Web site a fresh new look that is representative of the county’s continued efforts to keep its residents informed about government services and what makes Monmouth County such a great place to live,” Freeholder Director Robert D. Clifton said.

The first thing visitors to the site will notice is the bold red, white and blue color scheme. The colors were chosen to give the site a distinctly patriotic feel influenced by Monmouth County’s rich history, most notably, the Battle of Monmouth, which was the turning point in the Revolutionary War.

Attention to detail is paid throughout the design, from the lighting and pressed seal in the header to the raised look of the navigation bar and buttons.

A new calendar tab was also added to the main area of the home page, providing visitors with an at-a-glance view of upcoming events. County meetings, clinics, information session and park events are included on the main calendar.

“We want people to use the Web site as a resource,” Freeholder Thomas A. Arnone said. “Municipal leaders are accessing Shared Services information while residents and visitors can find out about things to do on the tourism pages. Either way, the county is working to improve the Web site and keep current with information.”

The International Acaddemy of the Visual Arts (IAVA) is a 200+ member organization of leading professionals from various disciplines. Membership includes a "Who's Who" of acclaimed media, advertising and marketing firms including: Sotheby's Institute of Art, Yahoo!, Estee Lauder, Wired Magazine, Polo Ralph Lauren, and more.

About the Davey Awards:

The Davey Awards exclusively honor the “Davids” of creativity, the finest small firms, agencies and companies in the world.  David defeated the giant Goliath with a big idea and a little rock -
the sort of thing small firms do each year. The annual International Davey Awards honors the achievements of the "Creative Davids" who derive their strength from big ideas, rather than big
budgets.  The Davey Awards is the leading awards competition specifically for smaller firms, where firms compete with their peers to win the recognition they deserve. Please visit www.daveyawards.com for more information

"This year’s W3 Winners demonstrate the out-of-the box thinking and creative execution that exemplifies what the Web is all about” said Linda Day, the Executive Director of the IAVA.  "On behalf of the entire Academy, congratulations to this year’s W³ Award entrants and winners for their dedication to pushing the limits and finding new ways to raise the bar in Web Creativity.

W3 Awards Info:

The W³ Awards honors creative excellence on the Web, and recognizes the creative and marketing professionals behind award winning Websites, Web Video and Online Marketing programs. Simply put, the W³ is the first major Web competition to be accessible to the biggest agencies, the smallest firms, and everyone in between. Small firms are as likely to win as Fortune 500 companies and international agencies.

The W3 Awards is sanctioned and judged by the International Academy of the Visual Arts, an invitation-only body consisting of top-tier professionals from a "Who's Who" of acclaimed media,
advertising, and marketing firms.  Please visit http://www.iavisarts.org for a full member list and additional information.

Each year, thousands of logos are submitted to iheartlogos.com to be judged. While most competitions have a select panel of distinguished judges, iheartlogos winners are chosen by the design community. Designers from around the world judge and critique the work of their peers. To ensure reputation doesn't interfere, the design firm responsible for the work is kept hidden, leaving the work to stand on its own merit. Start-ups to multi-national firms compete solely on the quality of their work.

"I was thrilled to learn we'll be featured in the upcoming iheartlogos book. While we've been recognized for our logo work in the past, we're most well-known for our award-winning web design work. To have our logo design work chosen as one of the best by the design community, arguarably the most critical group, its another clear indication that our creativity and design ability goes beyond the web." said Jeff Kastning, creative director.

Anchot Texts

One of the strongest signals to search engines is the anchor text.  Its important to identify your best keywords to incorporate the links with. Your goal is to have the highest probability of driving conversions from the terms you target. There are a few important principles to follow:

1. The phrase within the anchor text needs to be focused on the primary keywords.  But circumstance demand more creativity.  Diversification is an important principle in anchor text selection.

For example:

While using the exact same phrase you want to rank for would seem like a good idea, this is a common SEO mistake. More specific terms convert better. You can also diversify the anchor text with the use of keyword derivatives, making them look more natural to readers. 

Take note, if you have sub-category and product-level pages, be sure that the anchor text points to the corresponding product/category page that is optimized for the particular keyword within the anchor text.

The Destination URL

Be careful with who you link to.  Search engines take into consideration where the link is from. So, having links from low quality content sites or sites that have been penalized for spam or link farming may hurt your site. More isn't always better. When it comes to links, relevance and quality trump quantity.

1. Forgetting about competition.

People tend to target keywords with a high search volume without ever considering the amount of competition. On the surface, a highly searched keyword looks like a good one to invest in. However, most highly searched keywords are highly competitive as well, requiring a larger budget in order to be competitive. So, if you don't have the budget to compete at that level, you won't be able to obtain the type of results you're looking for.

The best approach is to look up related keywords that may not have as much popularity, but have lower competition. This allows you to dominate the keywords and see more traffic than you would targeting a highly competitive term. It's better to be a big fish in a small pond as they say.

2. Broad match vs exact match.

The Google Adwords Keyword Tool defaults to "Broad Match" mode. This allows your ad to show on similar and relevant variations of your keywords, even if they aren't on your keyword list. For example, "Broad Match" for the keyword: running shoes may show your ad on searches for:

• running
• shoes
• buy running shoes
• running shoe photos
• running shoes
• running sneakers

These general terms will result in significantly inflated numbers that are useless from an SEO perspective.

With an "Exact Match", your ad is shown only for searches that match your exact keyword/phrase. For example, "Exact Match" for the keyword running shoes will show on searches for:

• running shoes

Ads won't show on searches for:

• buy running shoes
• running shoe
• running shoe photos

So always remember if you are doing keyword research for SEO in the AdWords Keyword Tool: untick the box next to Broad match and tick the box next to Exact.

3. Bad keyword definition.

When you're so immersed in your business and industry, sometimes its difficult to look at things from your audience's perspective. Words that are in your day-to-day vocabulary may not be familiar to your customers. This results in the targeting of keywords they don't even use. If you're not sure, ask customers or those outisde your industry what they would type in to find your products/services.

4. Failing to target singular words.

We all know Google is smart enough to determine that searches for the singular and plural version of a keyword is pretty much the same. However, there are many cases where the search results may vary greatly. People usually focus on plural words without ever realizing that many users search for the singular version of the keyword. While singular terms tend to be too broad and overly competitive, they could result in higher revenues for businesses with a larger search engine marketing budget.

5. Forgetting to conduct keyword reviews.

The Internet and marketplace is constantly changing. Its a good idea to regularly review keywords and eliminate those that are performing poorly. There might also be new terms and phrases that are growing in popularity.

Those are just some of the common keyword research mistakes. If there's any you'd like to share, leave a comment below.